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Guild Wars Book Titles

Time for a lore lesson. Guild Wars 2 occurs 250 years beyond the happenings in Guild Wars 1. In between this time, a lot will undoubtedly happen in Tyria (and beyond). I would guess that we will learn a lot of the changes in-game. ArenaNet likes to leave a lot of crumbs so lore-happy fans can piece together things like civilizations, cultures, metaphysics, history, etc. They are also releasing three novels via a deal with Pocket Books that will give vignettes of the changes that occurred across a quarter millennium.

The first is going to be titled Guild Wars: Fall of Ascalon by Matt Forbeck. He just shipped off his first draft, and he speculates that the book might be released February 23, 2010. Well after the events of Guild Wars 1, the Charr (humanoid cat-chimera race) cleansed the corruption from within their warlike race and once again began their assault on the human kingdom of Ascalon, which was still mostly in ruins from the first Guild Wars game, Prophecies. As they began the final push on the capital city of Ascalon, King Adelbern used his god-forged sword to sacrifice the remaining defenders of Ascalon. The power of the sword reanimated the humans it killed, and the remaining Charr were forced to withdraw. Matt Forbeck’s novel likely covers these events as well as the creation of the last Ascalonian stronghold, Ebonhawke.

One very astute fan found possible evidence of the second (or third) Guild Wars novel. It seems that [J.] Robert King was commenting on Matt Forbeck’s blog about how “Guild Wars is a great world to write in.” With some further research on King’s own website, he notes that he is writing Dragonrise – an epic fantasy novel published by Pocket Books in 2010. This is pretty darn good evidence of another Guild Wars book, if you ask me.

While the Charr story pretty well sets up one region for Guild Wars 2. The world conflict seems to be against The Dragons. We met two powerful dragons in Guild Wars 1, but they were mere youths – not worthy of a capital “D.” The events in Eye of the North set back the awakening of Primordus two generations when his most powerful general, the Great Destroyer was killed. He still yet arose, and he was only the first. The awakening of the Dragons was world changing: destroying cities, creating new races, and humbling the gods. If J. Robert King is writing a book on these happenings, I think it will be one to watch for. I suppose later this year ArenaNet will come out with a press release on these books.

I don’t think ArenaNet is going to get Aion money… I don’t know, or even pretend to understand, subsidiary capital infusions, but I would believe that big daddy NCSoft wants ArenaNet to be largely profitable on their own.

That being said, I think that a 2010 release is damn near imminent because the last year ArenaNet has been selling only about 1-1.5 million dollars gross per quarter, which at a 100+ person studio means it is very likely they are operating in the red. Since they don’t have a subscription game, and their whole business model is built on selling boxes, I think NCSoft is going to start leaning on them after the Aion launch.

According to the last few NCSoft quarterly financial statements, ArenaNet has over 176 people, and is still hiring. They are also, by far, the biggest splotch of red on the expense side of the sheets other than the core Korean part of the company; more than all the other divisions combined.

While GW is still selling boxes, those sales continue to dip. CoX alone has more sales thanks to their subscription numbers, but with a fraction of the employee costs. But that is expected considering the different business models.

NCSoft has mentioned several times they are investing more money into their big titles, including GW. Of course, they said that about Tabula Rasa too. With the former ArenaNet top dogs pretty much running NCSoft West, I don’t think there is much doubt a lot is being invested in GW2. And a lot is expected in return!

Excellent post! I think I might actually be interested in reading these books, it sounds quite interesting. Let’s just hope that they’re not released in long gaps, forcing GW2 back into 2011. Although I wouldn’t mind that too much. I would rather Anet spend plenty of time making a great game than rush it. It’s a shame they had to announce it so early and get everyone excited but nevermind. If they are in financial trouble, then they’re going to need to make Guild Wars 2 a brilliant game. I think I might play Aion for a while as it does look great, and if Guild Wars 2 can pull of similar graphics to Aion, with a great Guild Wars story and gameplay, then it will be a success. For me, anyway. Thanks for this post.

Im so sad about it coming out in 2010, maybe they are trying to get all of they books done before the first one releases and have them all come out in a one month span. The only reason i think that is because Robert King said he was now just finishing Dragonrise, just after Matt finishes his. Tho it is hard to write a the 2nd part of a book with out knowing the first.